Harvey Wasserman: Bush To Veterans - Drop Dead

Bush To Veterans: Drop Dead

As another Veteran's Day passes
by, George W. Bush has sent a clear and present message to
the men and women of America's armed forces: Drop
Dead.

In an astonishing series of cynical attacks on
veterans rights, benefits and sanctity, the administration
has shortchanged our military personnel on their medical
care, pensions, compensation for having been tortured,
access to vital information about health dangers suffered in
service, and even their body armor.

After promising
that the Iraqi people would be "dancing in the streets" upon
their arrival, US troops are being attacked up to three
dozen times a day. In response, Bush has imposed an
unprecedented media blackout on coverage of their corpses
coming home.

Bush himself has yet to attend the funeral
of any soldier slain in Iraq. But he has attacked those
within the military who would express a democratic opinion
against his policies.

Bush has also violated a crucial
national tradition---dating to George Washington---against a
Chief Executive appearing in military garb while in civilian
office.

Bush himself went AWOL from his Alabama National
Guard unit during the Vietnam War. His lengthy absence may
have made him technically a deserter, and thus subject to
prosecution, which has never happened.

Earlier this year
Bush was flown by military jet onto the aircraft carrier
Abraham Lincoln. Strutting on the flight deck in a photo op
jump flight suit, he spoke before a "Mission Accomplished"
banner which he now denies was rigged by his handlers. Bush
has publicly cited his alleged "combat" experience, but
never served in any battle. He showed his tactical genius
by daring the Iraqi resistance to "bring it on," followed
by the deaths of scores of soldiers and civilians.

Three
supreme US generals who did serve in wartime--- Washington,
Ulysses S. Grant and Dwight Eisenhower---have also served as
US president. To emphasize the crucial separation of the
military from American civilian government, all made a point
of avoiding public appearances in military uniform while in
office. So have other veteran presidents such as John F.
Kennedy and Bush's father, George H.W. Bush.

But George
W. Bush soiled that tradition with a Tom Cruise routine that
cost taxpayers at least $800,000, and may have deprived the
crew of the U.S.S. Lincoln of a day's leave.

This
Veteran's Day, Bush signed the Fallen Patriots Tax Relief
Act, which doubles the tax-free death gratuity payment given
to the families of fallen soldiers from $6,000 to $12,000.
He also approved the National Cemetery Expansion Act to help
establish new military burial grounds.

But he has now
frozen $1 billion in financial settlements won by 17 U.S.
combat veterans who were whipped, beaten, burned,
electrically shocked and starved by Saddam Hussein during
the 1991 Persian Gulf War. The vets and their families filed
for compensation under a 1996 law, citing the Geneva
Convention.

On July 7, U.S. District Judge Richard
Roberts ordered Iraq to pay the 17 ex-POWs and their
families $653 million in compensatory damages, plus another
$306 million in punitive damages. But Bush has cited
"weighty foreign policy interests" and has sued to withhold
the money.

Meanwhile Secretary of Defense Donald
Rumsfeld has blatantly violated a 1990s law requiring the
military to keep baseline medical data so the health of the
US soldiers now serving in Iraq can be properly monitored.
The demand derives from Gulf War Syndrome, which may have
caused disabling diseases among as many as 220,000 vets.
But Rumsfeld has ignored the law.

The Administration is
also denying service women access to reproductive care,
including abortions. And it has failed to provide body
armor to some forty percent of the soldiers serving in Iraq.

Meanwhile Bush has fought to slash long-standing benefits
due surviving veterans of the World Wars, Korea and Vietnam.
The GOP has opposed repealing the Disabled Veterans Tax,
which mandated that money due some 600,000 surviving vets in
disability pay be deducted, dollar-for-dollar. At one point
Rumsfeld told the White House to veto the Defense
Appropriations Bill if it gave the vets that money.

A
firestorm of outrage has forced the administration into a
compromise phased in over ten years. But it will still deny
thousands of veterans their benefits as they die off.

With the relentless militarization of the mainstream
media, Bush clearly believes he can ignore the soldiers he
will condemn to death, disease and abject poverty.

Especially now that he has announced his courageous
support for more cemeteries in which to bury their
unphotographed corpses.

*********

- HARVEY
WASSERMAN is co-author (with Bob Fitrakis) of the
just-published GEORGE W. BUSH VERSUS THE SUPERPOWER OF
PEACE, available at www.freepress.org.

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